Tag Archives: Brisstyle

Black and White Vintage Cards

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Twitt

I create these fun cards from cut outs of a 1960’s vintage kids magazine, Treasure. These are great cards for the boys, all black and white featuring Robin Hood. Each card is unique featuring a different Robin Hood image. I cut and collage each card by hand.

If you would like to see more or to purchase a card you can do so here or visit in.cube8r in The Valley, Brisbane.

 

Lessons learned from my first market

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Twitt

Not very long ago I did something very exciting, I (proudly) held a stall at my very first market, the Belle Bazaar Twilight Markets and on December 10th I will be doing it all again at the brisStyle Indie Designers markets!

What a day! I was a little overwhelmed by it all, the weeks of hard work and preparation leading up to the event, the nerves on the day and finally the excitement of the market. I thought I might share a few of the lessons I learnt along the way.

  1. Take the time to plan in the lead up to your market, I had an ongoing pre market check list that I was double checking right up to the last minute, and it worked, I only forgot one thing!
  2. Get to the market early, take your time setting up, I was ready about half an hour before the event started this gave me plenty of time to relax, have a walk around, go to the loo, all that stuff and to be ready greet my first customers with a relaxed smile.
  3. If you’re a newbie like me, talk to the other stall holders, I learnt heaps, like what to expect over the Christmas period, how to improve my stall set up and how to hire an eftpos machine, and of course I met loads of great people!
  4. Market goers are interested in your creative process; as I am a lino print maker I brought along one of my carved lino’s to show people. I found it really helped me to connect; everyone seemed to remember doing lino prints at school this was a great conversation starter.
  5. Bring some work along with you, all the market tips I read advised that you need to be ‘present’ and greet your customers, while this is great advice; I found that people were more comfortable browsing at my stall while I worked on my craft and chatted with people at the same time. As a bonus I got a bit of extra work done!
  6. Observe the way customers interact with your stall this will help you to improve the layout for next time. I found that people didn’t look up behind me (where I had hung some of my cards) and many people were shy about looking through the open box of cards I had on my table. On the positive side, I noticed that the prints I displayed on my easel attracted the attention of possible customers from across the room.
  7. Smile and enjoy the experience, be proud of yourself for all the hard work you did to get there in the first place!

What have you learnt from your market adventures? I would love to learn from you too…

 

brisStyle Indie Designers Markets

Posted on by
Twitt

Relaxing on the grass, soaking up the sun, enjoying scones and cream, sipping hot chocolate, enjoying the band and gearing myself up for some serious handmade treasure hunting… where else could I be? BrisStyle Indie Designers markets of course!

I always feel like I am embarking upon a great expedition into the creative unknown when I leave home with the brisStyle Indie Designers markets as my destination. Set in the beautiful grounds of St Augustine’s church on Racecourse Road, Hamilton, these markets are run twice yearly, incorporating the super creative Indie Designers Christmas market.

BrisStyle, a not for profit incorporated association representing over 150 Brisbane handmadies and artists has played an important role in the growth and promotion of Brisbane’s burgeoning handmade scene. Stallholders at these markets are made up entirely of the very talented brisStyle members. With this in mind the talented folk at brisStyle always manage to put on a knockout array of stalls with a focus on handmade quality and variety.

The markets, situated in the garden behind the church and the adjoining church hall, can supply just about any form of handmade delight your heart desires, from original and unique jewellery to cute baby singlets to handmade incense sticks. These beautiful markets really do have something for everyone and I always seem to leave with something I never expected to buy, but of course have fallen instantly in love with!

These markets are totally everyone friendly, families, kids, prams and even dogs (well at least in the garden). With plenty of room to spread out and enjoy the church garden there are always lots of browsing market goers and kids happily running around, creating a real sense of community, something that I believe plays an important part of what handmade means.

If you love hunting down the latest trends, general handmade goodness and supporting Indie business then you have to make it your mission to get to the next brisStyle Indie Designers market. Which incidentally, is fast approaching, will be held on Saturday December 10th from 9am-4pm, I hope I see you there!

You can find out more about brisStyle here.